Claims of record warm days in May lack scientific balance – Melbourne and the 11 days consecutive over 20°C

SMH news item quoting the BoM – Melbourne’s record warm spell may stretch into June – no mention of urban heat island (UHI) site issues at Melbourne Regional Office 86071. Recently the BoM commenced weather recordings at Olympic Park station#86338 which will eventually replace the highly urbanized current site Melbourne Regional Office station#86071
Yes that is where they are claiming a warmth record – in the face of 150 odd years of urbanization feeding warmth into weather data.
Ignoring that the new site at Olympic Park 86338 which is still central to a huge urban heat island but is slightly less UHI affected than 86071 – only saw 9 days over 20 up to the 21st May.
Thanks to Geoff Sherrington who sent in this gem of Nelsonian telescope use.- Geoff also mentioned these 1904 & 1866 warm spells that except for minor gaps show that weather experienced by Melburnians has changed little in 149 years.

3 thoughts on “Claims of record warm days in May lack scientific balance – Melbourne and the 11 days consecutive over 20°C”

It should be noted that the BoM Acorn reporting system on the daily news starts in 1910 by a capricious decision by BOM to announce records only after that date.
Sure, there can be objections about use of old readings from out dated equipment, which is why I used the ‘raw’ data product from BoM and make this caveat.

In terms of effect on people and places, it matters not much if a record is claimed for a CONSECUTIVE period, or one broken with a day or two in between the +20C readings, as I show.

The BoM should concentrate on the physics and meteorology of the situation rather than going off on publicity stunts, presumably linked to global warming hysteria. Come on guys at BoM, give the freak show approach a rest and get back to science.

These claims of records May temps are also happening in Sydney. It appears there will be a record May for Sydney using the Sydney Obs w/s.
What’s interesting is that the Obs’ average max mean for May so far is higher than Sydney AP, Parramatta and Penrith which traditionally have higher May averages than Sydney Obs.